Desperate Remedies

‘Well, independent or no, she’s Mrs. Bollens now. Ah, I shall never forget once when I went by Farmer Bollens’s garden--years ago now--years, when he was taking up ashleaf tatie...

‘Well, you know how things do come to women’s ears. He used to live at Budmouth as an assistant-architect, and I found out that a young giddy thing of a girl who lives there som...

He hastily tied the head of Manston’s horse to the back of his own vehicle, that the steward might be deprived of the use of any means of escape other than his own legs, and dro...

‘DEAR CYTHEREA--I have received a frank and friendly letter from Mr. Manston explaining the position in which he stands now, and also that in which he hopes to stand towards you...

When Manston was persuaded, by the feigned heaviness of her breathing, that Anne Seaway was asleep, he softly arose, and dressed himself in the gloom. With ears strained to thei...

He went down the drive and out of the park, having started to proceed to an outlying spot on the estate concerning some draining, and to call at the potter’s yard to make an arr...

The exact locality of the fire was plain to him as he neared home. He soon could hear the shout of men, the flapping of the flames, the crackling of burning wood, and could smel...

‘I arose again, dressed myself, and went down to the outhouse. I must take down the cupboard again. I did take it down. I pulled out the bricks, pulled out the sack, pulled out...

Was this the woman of his wild and unquenchable early love? And was this the woman who had figured in the gate-man’s story as answering the name of Cytherea before her judgment...

They went down the park and through the gate, into the village of Carriford. By the time they reached the Three Tranters, it was verging upon ten o’clock. There, on the spot whe...

They were silent. ‘If papa had been alive, what a wonderful absorbing interest this story would have had for him,’ said Cytherea by-and-by. ‘And how strangely knowledge comes to...

She held up her hand. The soft tips of his fingers brushed the palm of her glove as he placed the money within it. She wondered why his fingers should have touched her.

Dinner-time came round as usual; she did not speak ten words, or indeed seem conscious of the meal; for all that Miss Aldclyffe did in the way of eating, dinner might have been...

‘Won’t tell--very well, don’t. You are very foolish to treasure up his name and image as you do. Why, he has had loves before you, trust him for that, whoever he is, and you are...

‘Nobody,’ said Edward. For it now became necessary to reflect upon his method of proceeding. His object in finding their whereabouts--apart from the wish to assist Owen--had bee...

Cytherea was uneasy at the sound--she did not know why, unless it was because her nerves were weakened by the sickness she had undergone. Instead of opening the door she ran out...

She looked at him in utter perplexity. The words could only have been said in jest, and yet they seemed to savour of a tone the furthest remove from jesting. There was his face...

The smouldering remnants of the Three Tranters Inn seemed to promise that, even when the searchers should light upon the remains of the unfortunate Mrs. Manston, very little wou...

‘No--I have not,’ said Manston absently. ‘But I am going to set about it.’ He hesitated, as if ashamed of some weakness he was about to betray. ‘My object in calling was to ask...

Indeed, the inexperienced Cytherea had, towards Edward in the first place, and Manston afterwards, unconsciously adopted bearings that would have been the very tactics of a prof...

‘Not now. You alarm yourself unnecessarily,’ he said tenderly. ‘My only reason for keeping silence is that with my present knowledge I may tell an untrue story. It may be that t...

‘A sound I heard once before in my life--at the deathbed of my mother. I could not identify it--though I recognized it. Then the dog howled: you remarked it. I did not think it...

‘He’s been very queer to-day, madam, very queer,’ another porter answered. ‘He do hardly hear when he’s spoken to, and d’ seem giddy, or as if something was on his mind. He’s be...

Owen reached the church-door a few minutes before the bells began chiming. Nobody was yet in the church, and he walked round the aisles. From Cytherea’s frequent description of...

They had reached the Cove, and had walked landward for nearly an hour over the hill which rose beside the strand, when Graye recollected that two or three miles yet further inla...

‘Owen,’ she said, ‘will you forgive me for what I am going to say? I don’t think I can--indeed I don’t think I can--take any further steps towards disentangling the mystery. I s...

There exists, as it were, an outer chamber to the mind, in which, when a man is occupied centrally with the most momentous question of his life, casual and trifling thoughts are...

His father looked absently at him and turned away again. Shortly afterwards they retired for the night. Alone in his bedroom Edward opened and read what he had not dared to refe...

‘Well, scarcely; you see her father doesn’t attend to that sort of thing as he used to. The engine was once quite his hobby. But now he’s getten old and very seldom goes there.’

Here she cut the Knapwater advertisement from the paper, put it into the envelope she had stolen, embossed with the society’s stamp, and directed it in a round clerkly hand to t...

‘Poor papa failed to fulfil his good intention for want of time, didn’t he, Owen? And there was an excuse for his past, though he never would claim it. I never forget that origi...

Then came the old and harassing question, what was Manston’s real motive in risking his name on the deception he was practising as regarded Anne. It could not be, as he had alwa...

I. THE EVENTS OF THIRTY YEARS II. THE EVENTS OF A FORTNIGHT III. THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYS IV. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY V. THE EVENTS OF ONE DAY VI. THE EVENTS OF TWELVE HOURS VII....

‘Ay, ay--in ringen--but I was spaken in a spiritual sense o’ this mornen’s business o’ mine up by the chancel rails there. ‘Twas very convenient to lug her here and marry her in...